In Toronto and Vancouver, Canadians trust Google more than Stephen Harper, survey shows

Canadians trust Google more than Stephen Harper, survey shows

A New Yorker cartoon shows a man at a desk, holding a knife, and saying into the phone, “Trust me, Stan. I’ve got your back.”

In a world of competitive self-interest, trust can be an asset when justified, and a liability when not — but in any case it can be valuable to a company, a politician, even a hockey league. The problem is that, like many emotions, trust is all but invisible to the tools of market research, and strategies to promote it are based on little more than anecdote. In its Community and Brand Trust Survey, B.C.’s Concerto Marketing Group shows a difference in the trust Torontonians and Vancouverites have for the institutions around them, from banks to mayors.

“Right off the bat we see that people in Toronto, pretty much across the board, are more trusting than people in Vancouver,” said Rob Dawson of Concerto. He said this reflects an independent, populist, Western mindset. “Our model shows that trust isn’t formed just one way, it’s formed through a variety of factors coming together, and if something happens to break that trust or shift it, it does take time to build it back up again.”

He said that the theory behind the survey — HuTrust, short for “human trust” — is a model that “not only measures trust but also explains how trust is formed,” by breaking it down into six factors that respondents are asked to judge: relationship, vision, innovation, competence, practical value and stability. If somebody wants to build trust, Mr. Dawson said, “they need to really focus on each of these six drivers, through their messaging, through their actions.”

Based on four online surveys in January of about 500 people, two each in Toronto and Vancouver, the results are accurate to within 4.4 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

HOCKEY

Conducted just as the NHL lockout was ending, the survey found that the least trusted figure of all was NHL commissioner Gary Bettman, whose trust levels ran from 8% in Vancouver to 13% in Toronto, with particularly low scores on benefit and vision. The NHL as a league scored better, in the low 30s.

POLICING

An earlier 2011 version of this report showed low trust in Vancouver police, and speculation was this reflected unease over the Stanley Cup riots. But the finding repeated itself, with 67% compared to 80% trust in Toronto Police. Torontonians also expressed greater trust in the RCMP, but they have a provincial force.

BANK OR CREDIT UNION?

Vancouverites were more trusting of credit unions, with a 72% rating versus 56% in Toronto. With the Big Five banks, the figures reversed, with 66% trust in Vancouver versus 76% in Toronto.

POLITICIANS

Trust in politicians is strikingly low. Prime Minister Stephen Harper, for example, scores half as well as Google, with Torontonians trusting him a bit more than Vancouverites, and “stability” showing up as a key driver. Aspiring Liberal leader Justin Trudeau fares better than Mr. Harper, but also struggles to crack 50%. And the NDP’s Thomas Mulcair trails them both. Both cities’ mayors, Gregor Robertson and Rob Ford, also scored low, in the 30s. The dismal showing reflects the immense scope of trust in the political arena, compared to the more narrow scope in business, Mr. Dawson said. “Google doesn’t have to save the world from poverty or hunger, it just has to be a really practical search engine that gives people results they can trust.”

TECHNOLOGY

Trust in a technology company is a complicated thing. For Google, it might reflect accuracy of results; or privacy for Facebook, or security for BlackBerry, or design for Apple. As with the hockey questions, news events might have skewed the numbers, as they pre-date the launch of the BlackBerry 10. But the survey shows a dramatic trust differential in favour of Apple, which scored in the 70s in both cities, compared to 40% for BlackBerry in Vancouver, and a stronger 57% in Toronto. Microsoft, BlackBerry and Facebook were all trusted more in Toronto than Vancouver, but in the case of Facebook, it was to a much lesser degree, down around 40%. “People trust things based on their relationship with them, so for some people it might be that they use Google every day as a search engine, for others it might be because they are invested in it,” Mr. Dawson said.National Post